Danish designers Komplot have created a set of concrete furniture for Swedish brand Nola.
Called Concrete Things, the chairs consist of concrete blocks with seats hollowed out, marked with a grid that was inspired by paving.
The project will be on show at CODEO9 as part of Copenhagen Design Week, which begins tomorrow.
Six of the blocks are located outside Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.
More about Komplot on Dezeen: Nobody Chair
Here's some more information from Komplot:
--
CONCRETE THINGS
By KOMPLOT DESIGN
for NOLA
”Concrete Things” – series of outdoor concrete furniture questioning the relation between the individual and the collective in public space. Simple geometric shapes with pavement inspired grid, which deformation keeps memory of somebody once seated in them.
Drawn in the air by thin lines of steel rods it becomes a weightless wireframe ghost-image of the heavy, very “material” concrete chair…
Concrete Things:
2009 PURCHASED BY NATIONAL ART FOUNDATION and placed besides the entrance to Rigshospitalet - Copenhagen University Hospital.
this is good. yeah well done on all fronts. soberizing. like it
….good flattering > see ´softcrete´ furniture by Ross Lovegrove for GUFRAM.
wow those concrete seats are very well designed, great peice of work done. visitor will definetly love this art.
i love it
wow… really nice experimental furniture… a raw block of concrete can be that charming… the combination with digitally formed and detailed surface works great for me! as furniture they are very interesting but i guess you will hate them when you want to turn your chair so you can talk to your neigbour ;-)
How about when it rains ! Isn’t the seat collecting water where you are supose to seat?
These will just collect rainwater and be dirty and wet.
Simple concrete box…..O_o…
I hope it doesnt rain much in Copenhagen,
the puddles in these seats arent gonna dry up very fast.
The shape has a interesting relationship between inside and out
please can you make one with wheels for my office, thanks!
the wireframe chair is fantastic!
there are 8 holes in the center of the concrete chair – the water will flow down.
The drain was a good idea, but I hope they are large enough to be purposeful and not just clog.
I think that the pragmatics of the design were worked out… I think its a little silly that everyone is so convinced that the design will fail. I think that everyone is missing the mark not reading the works as expressions of materiality. If the client was so concerned about something that was functional- they would have just ordered a park bench…
Hey people, every single bench, seat, log, grass, sidewalk, bin, tube, rack…etc, etc… that i ever sat outside in the streets gets wet and dirty and it takes a while to dry when it rains. !
Its called the “outside” world.
Even though i agree is relevant as part of any design excersise to think and resolve most of the “problems” possible, i think that in this case (which clearly has been thought out) the drainage is the least of any ones worries.
Copenhagen = rain. yes, but i think we (i live here) deserve to have something like this scattered around the city… not only Jeddah.
I think that its beautifull urban furniture.
They look like the long lost children of an Eames+Parent+Superstudio orgy…
They are fantastic!
and when it rains u have yr own pool!
Did anyone else want to put a drainage leave-out at the bum?
Could have been a nice opportunity for functional detail…
@ Pacman, hahaha… I agree 100%
Seats like this may also be useful alternatives to other methods of creating vehicle barriers. They can be mixed in with the concrete planters.
cf.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1223/1099310609_e845ae7ce7.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/08fP1H37Thew3/610x.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HhKBKHX91ec/STHOoy-cogI/AAAAAAAADtY/f6hTRgf5JfQ/s400/spheres.jpg
It is a smart way to transform a cube of concrete to a public seat, elegant and discreet at once, (despite its mass). Well done!
Francois Beydoun
Reminds me of this design, especially the drainage holes http://www.dexigner.com/design_news/follo-washbasin-system-designed-by-wmd.html
i’ve seen the exact same design in portugal last year, in front of a museum for contemporary furniture…
The concrete ‘block’ is hollow and has three drainage holes in the seating surface (visible on the pictures) for the rain-issue.
nice project. yes the rain would suck. but people dont sit outdoors in the rain anyway. the metal one reminds me of massard’s cappeliene chair (i forget the name of it)
but a good project none the less, and the metal frame gives the concrete negative space a context.
concrete is a robust, cheap and earthy material which is underused in this context.
the wireframe chair is much more elegant than the clunk of concrete.
I prefer this one:
http://www.architonic.com/1027335
you’d need to be pretty buff to move them around
The designers are not idiots. There are holes at the bottom of the seat for draining the water.
“Honey, I think the chair would look better over there, don’t you think?”
“No.”
This is really nice.
… and the Nobody chair should have won the Design Museum – Design of the Year award for 2008… eh Marcus?
Come on, friends!
How “nice” to see the discussion derailed to water draining problem.
It is correctly mentioned by somebody: we are not idiots. at least not complete idiots.
1. There is number of draining holes in the bottom of cavity;
2.”Pattern” you see on the surface is collecting and draining water, leaving the seating surface as dry as it can be…
Concrete Things are tested by staying over winter in Denmark. I am sorry, but Greenland, I guess, will not be the right place for them!
Silence from the haters.
These are fantastic examples of what is achievable with concrete when you think outside the box.
Thanks for sharing!
Definitively a great shape… but over used.
Tx Massaud for the original inspi.